A Story From Thailand

Now that I have a little time, I will be able to get back to a few of the stories that I wanted to tell. Here's the first:

Wandering Alone
The Junior High Students had just loaded onto Songtaos and left for their homes. We met as a staff to clean up the chapel a little bit, and then Rich announced what the rest of our day would look like. The High Schoolers would not be coming until afternoon the next day, so we had almost a full twenty-four hours of free time. These were our plans: eat lunch at 12pm, then meet in front of the chapel at 2pm to take Songtaos to a massage parlor in Chang Mai for traditional Thai Massages, take Songtaos to the McDonalds at the Night Bazaar then spread out from there for dinner and shopping until 10pm when we would meet back at the McDonalds to ride together back to the resort. From the time that we were done with lunch, until we met to leave at 2pm we had free time, but we had to move our stuff out of the rooms that we had been staying, spread out all over in different houses to be with the students, to now all be in one house together while they cleaned the others. We were also supposed to use this free time to take a nap. So, I figured out where I was supposed to go, then packed up all my stuff, ready to move it, then took a nap right there where I was. I woke up right at 2pm, in a panic! I rushed my luggage up the new house, then ran down to the front of the chapel. It was 2:07 and nobody was there. I looked inside the chapel and walked around a little bit, but nobody was to be found. They had left promptly, as scheduled. I had been left alone at the resort. I didn't know of a way to contact anyone in our group, and I didn't know the name or location of the Massage Parlor.
I wasn't too worried. Since, I wasn't really interested in getting a Thai massage, and I knew when and where they were meeting for dinner, so I figured that I would just hire a ride into the city and meet them there. The ride into Chang Mai was about 45 minutes, so I had two hours before I needed to leave the resort. I found a porch with a good view and a relatively cool breeze in the hot humid afternoon, and settled down to read for a little while.
Well, I got bored after just an hour. I figured that I would just get down town early and wander around before everyone else got there. So, I walked down toward the main office to call for transportation. One of the resort employees saw me and asked in broken English and hand gestures if I was the one American that had been left behind. I communicated that, yes, I was, and he told me that somebody had called to talk with me. I went into to the office, all the resort staff looked at me smiling, like good Thai people would, but with humor behind their eyes, "That's the guy that was late and got left behind." I was handed a cell phone, and told, "Kru Fai talk to you." And, she did. Fai is the language teacher at Grace International, and had been helping us as a translator and counselor during camp. She worked with Hume Lake when they came two years ago, and has visited the camp in the United States as well. She was with our team today, taking them to the massage parlor. She wanted me to be able to experience the Thai massage, and to have me be included with the rest of the group. I really appreciated that, even though I wasn't keen on the massage. "You can still get an hour of massage; I will have somebody from the resort drive you down." Okay, sure. So, I handed the phone over to one of the women in the office. She motioned to a van and then to a man rushing by, "He take you massage," she said. I got up to get in the van, "No. You sit here. Wait." Uh, okay. I guess I'll wait here, then. After about five minutes, I was brought to the van, then I sat in the van for another ten minutes before the driver got in and we left. I tried to talk to him, but he didn't speak English and I didn't speak much Thai. I got out a piece of paper that I had been given our first day in Thailand. It had a few common phrases, just the very basics to get around. So, for the next hour of driving I learned how to count in Thai, and memorized a few phrases to help me out when I got lost later during the trip. At this point, I was just expecting to get lost if not today, then at some point during the trip. I wasn't afraid, I knew I would be able to find my way around, getting help when I needed it, even if it took a long time and I had many adventures along the way. And, adventures I did have.
I was watching carefully the whole drive, trying to remember every detail of our route, so that I knew where I was. We turned down a large, busy street with shops and businesses on either side. Then, we turned down a small alley, while the driver looked intently at each shop. He looked like he was lost. We did one circle around the block before he stopped on the side of the road. He got out without saying a word, opened my door, helped me out of the van, then pointed up at a large two story building. "I'm supposed to go in there?" I asked. He nodded, "Thai massage!" Okay, so I crossed the street and walked walked up the steps to the door of the pink stucco building. It had large lettering in Thai, then smaller in English below it, "Massage Parlour". "This must be it," I thought as I pulled on the doors. They didn't budge, and as I looked down I realized that there was a large chain and padlock wrapped around the handles on the inside. There was a sign in Thai taped to the inside of the glass. I looked through the dark tinted glass and saw that there was nothing inside, just torn up walls, and a bare floor with splattered paint and drywall dust everywhere. I turned around just in time to see the van speeding off around the corner. I was alone in the wrong place, in a city I didn't know, with a language that I didn't speak. I walked back out into the alley to look up at the other buildings, maybe he had just pointed at the wrong one. Next door, there was another smaller building that looked like a massage parlor. I walked over, and a janitor looking man was outside sweeping the side walk. I asked in English if there were Americans inside getting massages. He nodded enthusiastically and led me inside. I took off my shoes, and sat down in the chair as he gestured for me to do so in the politest way possible before quickly hurrying down the hall. "Well, I guess I'll just wait here..." I thought. Ten minutes later, I was starting to feel uneasy when I saw him return down the hall way and begin knocking on each door down the hall, listening for a minute with his ear to the door before moving on to the next. It was slightly humorous; I refrained from laughing out loud. Finally at the last door, he heard something, stepped back, and waited as the door opened just moments later. A women dressed in a hospital like gown, a mask, rubber gloves, and booties came out blinking at the bright light. The man quickly said something in Thai, motioned towards me, then bowed slightly as he scurried back down the hall. The women came over to me, smiling politely, though she looked like she had just been rudely awakened from a good sleep. She asked me several questions in Thai. I asked if she spoke English. She asked another question in Thai and gestured kindly toward the hall of doors, smiling. No. Uh, "I'm looking for Americans getting massages." "American Massage?" "No, American tourists?" It when on like this for what seemed like fifteen minutes. She was still speaking Thai at me most of the time. So, I was trying to use the phrases I had learned. I finally gathered that the big Thai Massage parlor next door had moved "across the street". I said thank you, "Kaap Kuun Krap," put my shoes back on and left with a polite bow of the head. "Across the street," what ever that meant. Literally, across the street was a large, unmarked warehouse with steel roll up doors locked shut. Maybe she meant across the main busy street. I walked up the alley and looked across that big four lain divided road, now busy with five 0'clock rush hour traffic. There was nothing that looked like a massage parlor. So, I began walking down one side of the street looking in the windows of each business looking for my friends or at least a massage parlor that looked like it could handle twenty-five people at once. I got all the way down to a large five-way intersection, beyond which, there was just green open land, junk yards, and street-side taco stands that don't serve tacos. I decided it probably wasn't down there, so I crossed the intersection and started down the other side. That's easy to say, but quite difficult when you're in an unfamiliar country. They drive very different in Thailand. First of all, it's primary western influence was British, so they drive on the other side of the road. Then, they tend to make up lanes, as many as can fit, the traffic lights are kind of different, and nobody stops at a red light when they are turning left, also most of the vehicles are motorized scooters with riders in masks and strange helmets. It only made things worse that this was a five-way intersection with no pedestrian signals. Does nobody walk in this city? When I got across the other side, there was what looked like a biker gang. It wasn't, but that's what it always looks like, about fifty motorcycles with people in masks and rubber gloves, sometimes brightly colored rubber galoshes. I was walking against traffic on the side of the road with no shoulder. Fortunately they were waiting at the light, and not running me over, but I had to squeeze around each bike. Most of them just stared at me, like the stupid foreigner that I was at that moment. One women was not paying attention. She was looking down at her right foot when I squeezed by on her left side, just inches from her body. Suddenly she looked up and got startled really bad, she almost dropped the motorcycle on it's side and grabbed tightly, her hand landing on the horn as she quickly responded in a panic. I just smiled, while the guy on the motorcycle behind her laughed out loud. We shared a moment together, two complete strangers, able to laugh at an awkward situation, understood even without a common language. Some things are just universal.
I walked for forty-five minutes, up and down the street. I saw many massage parlors, but none of them held my friends. I went into several of them, going through conversations similar to my first one. I even walked down and around a few alleys. I was so many interesting things. I saw construction workers just getting off the job, loaded into tall trucks with large cage enclosures in the back, fifty people or more crammed in the back, looking forlornly out between the bars as if they were refugees in a war torn country. I saw a Starbucks Coffee, and two 7-Elevens. I saw a motorcycle rental store, and thought about renting one to continue my search. I crossed the street in the middle of busy traffic, at first following closely with locals, then later by myself. I was just about to give up on meeting them for a massage, and just catch a Songtao for a ride to the Night Bazaar meeting for dinner, when up ahead I saw Fai standing out near the street on her cell phone. She turned just as I called to her. She smiled, glad to have found me. "Where were you? What happened?" she asked. "I slept too long at the resort, and then got dropped off at the wrong place here." She showed me inside a building that said something about Kid Works on the side, so it had moved, but hadn't gotten a sign yet. No wonder I couldn't find it. Everyone had just finished their massages and was very glad to see me. Rich admitted to me that nobody noticed I was missing until they had all driven the hour drive into Chang Mai, gotten into the massage parlor and finished handing out money for the massage. He had agreed to pay the tip for everyone, 100 Baht to each person, until everyone had gotten their money. "Why do I have a hundred Baht left?" "Who are we missing?" "Where's Nathan?"
So, that was my little adventure. The rest of the night was fun. We had dinner at an outdoor market, I think I got Kao Soy Gai, curry, coconut soup, the favorite among locals. And, we spent the rest of the evening in the Night Bazaar, bartering for cheap, knock-offs of designer things. I was glad to be with the rest of the group, but just in that little bit of being lost and wandering, I had gained a new confidence in being able to find my way around and ask questions of strangers. I'm glad that this happened. I was just worried about the stress that I caused the rest of the group worrying for me, and feeling guilty that they hadn't noticed that I was missing until sooner. I don't mind, it was my own fault. Actually, it was kind of funny. The rest of our trip, everyone always asked, "Is everyone here? Is Nathan here?"
When all was said and done, I think that I got to know the city in a way that I couldn't have otherwise.